Thomas Wynn talks about how we connect with the human aesthetic experience. "Human aesthetics did not begin with the 40,000-year-old cave paintings of Upper Palaeolithic France, but instead have evolutionary roots going back at least 1.8 million years."

Since 2013 Dr. Thomas Wynn has worked with noted Los Angeles artist Tony Berlant to assemble an exhibition of early hominin artifacts that document the evolution of the human aesthetic sense. Using his background as a cognitive archaeologist, and Tony's experience in the production of visual art they have identified a number of hitherto underappreciated antecedents to the modern aesthetic sense. Much earlier than most scholars have appreciated, hominins such as Homo erectus invested their artifacts with aesthetic qualities such as symmetry, selection for color, peak shift (exaggeration of visual effects), and proto-typicality. However, this all evolved in the absence of any clear symbolic meaning.

Did you know: Dr. Wynn is considered to be one of the founders of the research specialty known as cognitive archaeology.

"Human aesthetics did not begin with the 40,000-year-old cave paintings of Upper Palaeolithic France, but instead have evolutionary roots going back at least 1.8 million years."

Since 2013 Dr. Thomas Wynn has worked with noted Los Angeles artist Tony Berlant to assemble an exhibition of early hominin artifacts that document the evolution of the human aesthetic sense. Using his background as a cognitive archaeologist, and Tony's experience in the production of visual art they have identified a number of hitherto underappreciated antecedents to the modern aesthetic sense. Much earlier than most scholars have appreciated, hominins such as Homo erectus invested their artifacts with aesthetic qualities such as symmetry, selection for color, peak shift (exaggeration of visual effects), and proto-typicality. However, this all evolved in the absence of any clear symbolic meaning.

Did you know: Dr. Wynn is considered to be one of the founders of the research specialty known as cognitive archaeology. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx